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CAN I RECORD A MECHANIC'S LIEN?

California

I am the sole stockholder and officer of a california corporation which holds a C53 contractor's license for which I am the RMO. However I made a written agreement with a homowner for a addition to his residence and some remodeling. I did not sign the contract on behalf of my company and did not use my license number. The agreement provides that the homeowner would act as his own general contractor for he project and he would be responsible for pulling his own permits and I would be responsible to provide the labor and equipment. The homeowner was supposed to reimburse me for all materials I supplied for the project. Because I was a friend of the homeowner I trusted him to make the pay my bills but when I allowed him to fall behind on making the progress and reimbursement payments he suddenly stopped paying me. The last time me and my helpers were on the jobsite continuing the work was less tha one week ago. He owes me more that $60,000. I am concerned about not being able to state that the contract was between the homowner and me personally. I am not personally licensed. But I did not think I needed to be a GC because the homeowner was acting as his own contractor and me and my helpers were supplying the labor.

1 reply

Sep 13, 2022
There are a lot of issues to unpack here. The description is ambiguous as to whether you or your company had a valid license at the time of the work for homeowner. A C-53 pool license limits what kind of work you can do for a homeowner. It would not permit you to act as a general contractor doing multiple trades or subcontracting other contractors to do multiple trades for a homeowner. That alone give homeowner grounds for refusing to pay you. Further, homeowner may have grounds for demanding every single dollar paid to you for disgorgement. CSLB has a vested interest in making the rules very strict in order to protect licensed contractors and to ensure that the minimum quality of workmanship is met. There may be grounds for you seeking to recover reasonable value of the work, but that would require a long discussion with a qualified construction attorney.
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